Using My Simplified Planner™

Hooray! I finally had a few minutes to take a few snapshots of my own Simplified Planner™! It’s funny, I take this thing with me everywhere and have gotten these wide-eyed looks from moms balancing babies on their hips, cell phones between their cheeks and shoulders all while trying to wrangle a few shopping bags on their arms. The other day, one stopped everything and said, “What is that… exactly.”

Blushing and excited, I told her… it’s a life manager. Period. I designed this as a day planner, but am quickly finding so many uses for it. Many of you have asked exactly how I use my Simplified Planner™, so here goes!

EVERYTHING goes in. Everything. It’s designed so that you can punch holes in whatever you need to keep together and pop it right in. No more loose papers. No more receipts I can’t find. No more ideas for Brady’s second birthday party floating around in random drawers, underneath my keyboard and folded at the bottom of my purse/diaper bag (oh yes, we’re already planning). No more Bed Bath and Beyond coupons on the refrigerator. No more lost LOFT coupons that I kick myself for forgetting when I’m at the mall and NEED those mint green pants. Inside my Simplified Planner™ you’ll find my sales tax submission papers (because I ALWAYS lose them). You’ll find postage stamps and envelopes for quick note writing. You’ll find reminders for Brady’s check-ups, bills to pay and recipes to try.

In my Simplified Planner™, I use:

Weekly Calendar Pages: I love that they’re Mon – Sun so that I get a glimpse of my weeks and weekends all together. The days are segmented into AM, Lunch, PM and Dinner (perfect for meal planning and exactly how I think about my day).

Dividers: I used clear label tape and my DYMO LetraTag label maker to name the six things I’d be keeping track of in my Simplified Planner™: Calendar, To-Do, Brady, Home, Work and Blog. More on these sections later.

Journal Pages:I split these pages among the sections for note taking, list making and general brain-dumping.

Pocket Pages: I keep these at the back of my planner and use them as a catch all for all kinds of things.

Gold Paper Clips: My friend Amy of Lily and Bliss had a genius idea. She clips coupons to the weeks they’ll be expiring within her planner. Easy to find – hard to forget. AWESOME IDEA!

Binder Bands: Also coming soon!

Heart & Star Date Stickers: Coming next week to our shop! I love using these to mark important dates, birthdays, date nights (!!) and events. They’re 3/4″ x 3/4″ and perfectly sized for our day spaces. You can even write on them! The gold hearts are my favorite. Naturally. : )

For my sections, like I mentioned, I use the dividers for the following:

Calendar: This section holds my Weekly Calendar pages. That’s it. I keep it at the front because I use it the most.

To-Do: This section holds a few Journal Pages. I keep a running to-do list here. I cross things off as a get them done but it’s SO GREAT and easy to have just ONE to-do list in ONE place. No more lists floating around everywhere (on my phone, on my computer, in my planner)… they’re all right here. I dump all my ideas here too so that my brain isn’t constantly running with thoughts and I can focus on what matters.

Brady: This section mostly holds second birthday party ideas right now. I also keep ideas for fun activities to do with him and cool events coming up in Tampa he might enjoy.

Home: When we remodeled our kitchen, I kept all of our contracts, ideas, sources, etc here.

Work: Whew. This is a big section. It’s a good thing this binder is 1″ and can hold all my work AND personal stuff (because let’s be honest, they’re all one in the same). My work section holds sources, ideas, notes, etc mainly regarding the Shop. When researching manufacturers, printers, etc — I keep their contact info and details here for easy access. I also have a page with ideas for NEXT YEAR’S Simplified Planner™ release! By the way, have you guys seen the 2013 Pantone Color Predictions? Check it out if you want a sneak peek into next year’s Simplified Planner™ binder colors! I can’t tell you which one(s)! : )

Check back next week in the shop for some of our new accessories! I’ve LOVED seeing how all of you are using your Simplified Planner™ to keep your lives together. I can’t wait to hear more! Go to hashtag #SimplifiedPlanner on Instagram to see all kinds of photos of how our customers are simplifying their lives to focus on what matters most.